Interesting and unusual facts about the soil. Interesting facts about the planet Earth (15 photos). Soil is the world's largest natural water filter

Space strikes with new worlds, mysteriously twinkling stars, swift and fast comets, asteroids. Earth is a planet that holds many interesting and unknown things. Almost every day, scientists discover new, amazing interesting facts about the planet Earth.

  1. Planet Earth is reliably protected from falling meteorites and harmful radiation from the sun's rays.. Such protection is provided by an atmosphere consisting of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and some other gases (about 1%).
  2. The solar system is made up of many planets. Their names are similar to ancient greece and Rome, symbolizing the power of gods and goddesses, have survived to our time. Only the planet Earth and the Sun each nation has an individual name.
  3. Among all eight planets of the solar system, only the Earth is distinguished by its density, which is about 5.515 g/cm3. Among the planets terrestrial group The Earth is the largest, has the highest gravity and has the strongest magnetic fields.
  4. The earth is divided into continents, which are represented by large parts of land. All continents are separated by water masses. Millions of years ago, all these continents were interconnected and formed a single continent called Pangea. Its separation occurred as a result of constant movements of the earth's crust.
  5. Every year the temperature of the Sun is very high, which negatively affects the life of the Earth.. At the advent of a billion years the temperature solar planet reaches its limit, the surface of the Earth will dry up completely, the seas and oceans will disappear, only dry land will remain. The earth will turn into a dry planet inhabited only by bacteria underground.
  6. Only planet Earth has four layers: magnetosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere.
  7. The earth has a magnetic field that has certain spatial boundaries. The Earth's magnetic field is formed during the rotation of the planet and the melting of the nickel-iron core.
  8. Previously, ozone holes were discovered on Earth, but the largest of them was discovered only in 2006 and is located above the Antarctic.
  9. Earth has one natural satellite, the Moon.. It is worth saying that in all solar system The moon is the fifth largest in the list natural satellites. It is located at a distance of about 384,400 km from the earth. A person sees the Moon only from one side, since it rotates around its axis in synchronism with the rotations of the Earth.
  10. On Earth, weather forecasting depends on the distribution of water vapor in the atmospheric zone.
  11. Earth has an equatorial inclination to its orbit of about 23.44 degrees. That is why on Earth you can observe the change of four seasons of the year - summer, winter, spring and autumn.
  12. Earth's crust made up of plates that are in constant motion. In one year, they move a distance that can be compared to the length of a person's regrown nail in a year. If their speed of movement does not decrease, then in about 250 million years, the mankind of the Earth will be able to see the new supercontinent formed.
  13. The first artificial Earth satellite was launched in 1957 in the USSR, later similar satellites were launched by other foreign countries. Are withdrawn artificial satellites into Earth orbit to perform various tasks.

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  14. Thanks to the enormous energy of the core and magma, the Earth can hold the oceans and atmosphere on its surface.. Also, thanks to this energy, tectonic plates were formed, separating large oceans from magma. Through high pressure and heat on the surface of the oceans was displaced by the land, which turned out to be lighter in comparison with the seabed.
  15. To date, special artificial satellites have been developed for signalmen, navigators, meteorological satellites, reconnaissance, research, biosatellites, and astronomy. They allow scientists around the world to solve problems of varying complexity, including the study of the solar system, their natural satellites, galaxies, comets and asteroids, and life in outer space.

The big bang theory is just one of the assumptions that has no solid evidence. Therefore, it is impossible to say unequivocally how it arose.

But we will tell you what is reliably known about the Blue Planet, as our common home is also called.

One Earth day is the time it takes for a planet to rotate on its axis. , which we see, return to their places in the sky every 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds. This is the so-called star day. A sunny day takes exactly 24 hours.

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Its mass is 5.9726 1024 kg.

The distance from the Earth to the Sun is on average 150 million km, and from the Earth to - 384,467 km.

Why does the earth rotate

An interesting fact is that the rotation of the Earth around the Sun can be explained by its fall. The gravity (force of attraction) of the Sun causes the Earth to rotate around itself and around its axis in the same way as the Earth's gravity makes a ball thrown from a ball roll. The speed at which the Earth moves around the Sun is approximately 29.765 km/s.

Age of the Earth

It is believed that the age of the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years. The age was established by taking into account the meteorites that fell to the Earth during its formation.

Again, it is scientifically incorrect to call these facts unambiguous due to the lack of reliable evidence.

What is the earth made of

The core of the Earth is made up of iron and nickel, which is the reason for the force of gravity. The crust is formed mainly from oxygen and silicon. Between them is a mantle - molten silicon and sulfur compounds metals and their oxides.


Composition of the Earth

What is the size of the earth

About we wrote a separate article. Briefly, we only note that at the equator the circumference of our planet is 40,075 km. The diameter is 12,578 km. The diameter of the Earth at the poles is less than 43 kilometers, that is, at the poles the planet is, as it were, flattened.

What is the shape of the earth

Some people think that the Earth is a perfect sphere. In fact, things are a little different. At the equator, our planet is slightly convex, so the speed of the Earth's rotation is higher there. An interesting fact is that the shape of the globe is called "genoid".

How long is a year on Earth

One Earth year is the time it takes the planet Earth to complete one revolution around the sun. The length of the path is 938,886,400 km. We cover this distance in 365.24 days. We round the calendar year to 365 days, no tail. But in science there are no superfluous "tails".

What is a leap year

An interesting fact is that scientists do not neglect 0.24 days, which are not included in the usual calendar. It is for this reason that every four years at the end of February there is one additional day (February 29).

When this happens, we call such a year a leap year. Interestingly, once every 4 centuries, one leap year is also skipped. That's such a confusing piece of science!

How is Earth different from other planets

Earth is the only planet with a temperature that allows water to float on the surface and an atmosphere that contains vital oxygen. Water and oxygen are the most necessary ingredients for the planet to have the possibility of life.


Size ratios of the sun and planets

No other place in the universe modern science did not even find approximate conditions for life, except for the planet Earth on which we live.

The earth is the most unique planet in our galaxy (at least it will stay that way until we find another planet that has life on it). In fact, it is so unique that people throughout the history of mankind have studied it and still do not fully understand all its processes. However, what we know about our planet is that it can pleasantly surprise us. From the absurd number of lightning strikes a day to the varying strength of gravity in different parts of it, the twenty-five facts about the Earth that we will discuss below can really surprise you:

25. The driest place on Earth is the McMurdo Dry Valleys. It hasn't rained there in the last two million years.


24. Every year, the wind carries 40 million tons of dust from the Sahara to the Amazon.


23. The temperature of the Earth's core is 5500 degrees Celsius and is equal to the temperature of the surface of the Sun.


22. 99 percent of the earth is in its core.


21. Earth is the only planet in the solar system that has plate tectonics. Without it, carbon dioxide would not be processed and the planet would overheat like Venus.


20. 90 percent of the volcanoes on planet Earth are under water.


19. 1 liter of salt water contains 13 billionths of a gram of gold.


18. Salt water makes up 97 percent of all water on Earth.


17. 70 percent of the remaining 3 percent is in the form of polar ice caps.


16. Most of the rest of the water is either soil moisture or located deep underground in inaccessible aquifers.


15. 1/5 of the small fraction of fresh water that is actually in lakes and rivers is located in one place - Lake Baikal in Russia.


14. There are 8.6 million lightning strikes on Earth every day.


13. From a distance, Earth would be the brightest planet because sunlight reflects off its water surface.


12. At an altitude of 19 kilometers, we encounter a phenomenon known as the Armstrong Line (Armstrong Limit). It is from this height that a person should be in a spacesuit, because due to low pressure, water boils at body temperature.


11. The Earth's orbit is polluted by 38,000 anthropogenic objects.


10. The size of 22000 of them exceeds 10 meters.


9. Every day at least one of these objects falls to the Earth.


8. To be precise, there are not 24 hours in a day. It takes only 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds for the Earth to rotate on its axis. This concept is known as sidereal day.


7. Contrary to popular belief, the Great Wall of China is not visible from space. However, air pollution in China can be seen from space. You can also see the Great Barrier Reef from space.


6. The photo farthest from Earth was taken from a distance of 6 billion kilometers from Earth. It is called "Pale Blue Dot", which means "pale blue dot".


5. The ozone hole is actually shrinking and in 2012 reached its smallest size in a decade.


4. Plastic makes up 90 percent of the trash in the world's oceans.


3. The earth is not a perfect sphere, due to the force of rotation, the earth is actually convex at the equator.


2. Due to this anomaly, in some regions the force of gravity is greater or less than in others. One such place is Hudson Bay in Canada. However, the difference is very small, only 0.005 percent.


1. We know more about our Universe than we do about the oceans or the Earth's core. In fact, we have not yet explored 95 percent of the world's oceans.

Mankind has taken a huge step from the concept that the Earth is flat to the scientifically proven fact that the Earth is just a grain of sand among hundreds of billions of stars and planets, on the outskirts of our galaxy. If you were looking interesting facts about the planet Earth, satellite video of the Earth, then this article is for you.


1. Unusual is the fact that all the planets of the solar system except ours bear names from Greek and Roman mythology.

2. Earth as a planet of the solar system appeared more than 4500000000 years ago. Before the appearance of life on the planet, several thousand million years passed from the birth of the Earth, and relatively recently, by geological standards, about four million years ago, people appeared.

3. If the history of the Earth is compressed to 24 hours, then life would already have appeared at four in the morning, and land plants at 10:24 in the evening. At 11:41 p.m. the result terrible disaster Dinosaurs would have become extinct, and human history would not have begun until 11:58:43 p.m.

4. From an astronomical point of view, the Earth occupies the most successful place in space for the origin and maintenance of life. The circumsolar orbit of the Earth is within the zone with the optimal temperature for the existence of water in liquid form, and this, according to scientists, is a prerequisite for the existence of life forms.

5. According to various estimates of scientists in our galaxy Milky Way There are more than 2 billion planets similar to Earth, this gives hope that perhaps we are not alone in the boundless universe.

6. The earth is not completely spherical. Since our planet is constantly rotating, this has also affected its shape - the Earth is somewhat convex at the equator and slightly flattened at the poles.

7. Distance from the Earth to the Sun is more than 149.6 million kilometers, and sunlight reaches the Earth in 8.3 minutes. This means that if the Sun suddenly went out, on Earth we would not notice it until eight minutes later.


8. If you drill a tunnel through the Earth and then jump into it, it will take you about 42 minutes to get to the other side.

9. According to exact calculations, our planet makes a full rotation around its axis in 23 hours and 56 minutes, that is, in fact, a day is somewhat shorter than the generally accepted 24 hours. This also applies to the length of the year, since the revolution around the Sun lasts more than 365 days and 6 hours. That is why every four years one more day is added to the calendar (February 29) and we call such a year a leap year.

10. Every century the length of the day increases by 1.7 milliseconds.

11. An earthquake near Japan in 2011 increased the speed of the Earth's rotation and thereby shortened the day by 1.8 microseconds.

12. If we did not have the Moon, a day on Earth would last no more than six hours.

13. The Earth revolves around the Sun at an average speed of over 107,000 kilometers per hour.

14. The Earth's magnetic field has been steadily weakening over the past 180 years, especially around Brazil. If the Earth did not have a constant strong magnetic field, we would all be fried by cosmic radiation and solar storms.

15. If the Sun were the size of a ball, then Jupiter would be the size of a golf ball, and the Earth would be small, like a pea. More than 1.3 million Earth-sized planets can be placed in the middle of the Sun.


16. If the Earth were the size of a billiard ball, then its surface would be smoother than the surface of the best billiard balls.

17. According to the famous US inventor Raymond Kurzweil, even 0.01% of the sunlight falling on Earth every day can satisfy energy needs all over the world.

18. Earth is the only place in the solar system where you can see a total solar eclipse.

19. From 10 to 20 volcanoes erupt somewhere on Earth every day.

20. Almost always somewhere on Earth you can observe a thunderstorm. Scientists estimate that more than 750 thunderstorms rage on our planet every day.

21. Lightning strikes the Earth's surface 100 times per second, or more than 8.5 million times a day.

22. Every year, scientists detect half a million earthquakes, one hundred thousand of which can be felt even without special instruments. Almost every 5 days, an earthquake occurs on Earth, which can lead to different levels of destruction.

1. The core of the Earth contains enough gold to cover the entire surface of our planet by almost 45 centimeters.

2. The inner core of the Earth has a radius of about 1220 kilometers, which is comparable to 70% of the radius. In addition, based on geophysical and geochemical methods, there is an assumption that inner core our planet is about the same temperature as .

3. Lightning on our planet strikes the ground more than 8.6 million times a day.

4. Before the beginning space flights The earth was often depicted as a green world. Science fiction writer Frank Paul was supposedly the first to depict a cloudless blue planet with clearly defined land on the back of the July issue of Amazing Stories in 1940.

5. Scientific evidence indicates that the Earth formed from the solar nebula about 4.54 billion years ago. Life on the planet appeared about 4.25 billion years ago, that is, shortly after its occurrence.

6. The conditions for the existence of life on Earth preserve the ozone layer and the Earth's magnetic field, which weaken solar radiation harmful to life.

7. occupies about 70.8% of the surface of our planet. liquid water, which is necessary for all known life forms, does not exist on the surface of any of the known planets except Earth.

8. average speed movement of lithospheric plates on Earth is approximately equal to the growth rate of fingernails on human hands. After 200-300 million years, hypothetically, all the continents of the planet will merge into the supercontinent Pangea Ultima.

9. The force of gravity at the Earth's poles is greater than at the equator. A person who weighs 150.8 pounds (68.4 kg) at the North Pole will weigh 400 grams less at the equator.

10. More than 68% of the Earth's fresh water is in a solid state, including glaciers, snow cover and permafrost.

The first image of the whole Earth in history (restoration)

11. The Earth was first photographed from space in 1959 by the Explorer 6. The first ever image of the entire Earth was taken orbital station Lunar Orbiter V August 8, 1967.

12. The most massive extinction in the entire history of the Earth occurred at the end of the Permian period (298.9 ± 0.15 million years ago), when more than 90% of living beings on the planet died.

13. highest point The surface of the Earth is Mount Everest (8,848 m above sea level), and the deepest is the Mariana Trench (10,994 m below sea level).

14. The deadliest of all known tsunamis occurred on December 26, 2004 in Southeast Asia, which was caused by an underwater earthquake in Indian Ocean magnitude 9.3. The total number of deaths exceeded 235 thousand people.

15. The most toxic plant on Earth is the yew, a genus of small coniferous trees. Every part of this tree is poisonous, except for its berries, however, their seeds are also poisonous.

16. If all the water of the World Ocean was evenly distributed over the surface, then a layer with a thickness of more than 2.7 kilometers would be obtained. Of all the water that is on Earth, only 2.5% is fresh, the rest is salty.

17. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth's average temperature would be between -18 and -23°C, given that it is actually 14.8°C. Without this thermal insulation effect, life on our planet most likely would not exist.

18. The atmosphere passes into interplanetary space gradually, in the exosphere, starting at an altitude of 500-1000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. By definition, the boundary of the atmosphere and space is drawn along the Karman line, located at an altitude of about 100 kilometers, above which air flights become completely impossible.

19. Human breathing becomes impossible at an altitude of 9 kilometers, although up to about 115 kilometers the atmosphere contains oxygen.

20. At an altitude of about 19-20 kilometers, the pressure of the atmosphere decreases so much that it leads to the boiling of water and interstitial fluid in the human body. Outside a pressurized cabin at these altitudes, death occurs almost instantly.

21. The seas lose more water due to evaporation than they receive with precipitation, on land - on the contrary. Water continuously circulates around the globe, while its total amount remains unchanged.

22. The rotation of the Earth is from west to east. Due to tidal acceleration, each subsequent day is longer than the previous one by an average of 29 nanoseconds.

23. Due to tidal synchronization, the Moon is moving away from the Earth by about 38 millimeters per year. In millions of years, this tiny change, plus an increase in the Earth's day by 23 microseconds per year, will lead to significant changes. So, for example, in the Devonian period (about 410 million years ago) there were 400 days in a year, and a day lasted 21.8 hours.

24. The largest waves on Earth caused by tides are observed in the Bay of Fundy in Canada and are 18 meters.

25. Earth is the only name planet that was not taken from Greco-Roman mythology.

26. Lake Baikal in Russia accounts for about 20% of the world's fresh lake water reserves. This is the deepest and oldest lake in the world.

27. The ice sheet contains about 80% of all fresh water planets. If it melts completely, the level of the World Ocean will rise by almost 60 meters.

28. The Earth moves around the Sun at a distance of about 150 million kilometers at a speed of almost 30 kilometers per second.

29. The driest place on Earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile. In some parts of this desert, rain falls once every few decades.

30. If the history of the Earth were presented as a 24-hour segment, then they would die out at 23:41, and human existence would begin at 23:54 and 43 seconds of the same day.

31. At first human civilization The number of trees on the planet has almost halved. As a result of human activities, we lose about 15 billion trees every year.

32. According to recent studies, over the past 40 years, the number of wild animals on Earth has halved.

33. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, concentration carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere increased by almost 30%. At current rates, in the next 100 years, about 30% of animal species may disappear from the face of our planet.

34. Once the solar luminosity is 10% above the current value, the global mean surface temperature will reach 47°C. The atmosphere will become a "wet greenhouse" and cause the oceans to evaporate without restraint.

35. According to Brandon Carter's doomsday theorem, in 10 thousand years, humanity will die out with a probability of 95%.

36. A significant part of the salt in the oceans was released during volcanic eruptions or extracted from the cooled igneous rocks that formed the ocean floor.

37. Almost one third of all land animals on our planet live in the Amazon rainforest. Many species of animals in the Amazon have not even been described or identified.

38. Lightning strikes mostly higher objects. This happens because electrical discharge takes the path of least resistance, i.e. the shorter path. Therefore, it is impossible to be in open space during a thunderstorm, since in this case a person protrudes significantly above the surface.

39. On October 31, 2011, the world's population reached 7 billion people. According to UN estimates, by 2050 the world's population will reach 9.2 billion.

40. Previously, the presence of the Counter-Earth (also Gloria) was assumed - a hypothetical cosmic body behind the Sun, constantly located at the opposite point of the Earth's orbit (at point L3), moving synchronously and being in 1: 1 orbital resonance with the Earth. In 2007, several STEREO satellites were launched - their orbits at the initial stage of work made it possible to directly observe the region of the L3 point. No objects were found there.

Sources:
1 Coss, Lauren. Weird-But-True-Facts about Earth. Mankato, MN: The Child's World, 2013
2 en.wikipedia.org

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